Full-sized replica of world-famous Shroud of Turin to be displayed at Wolverhampton church

The Holy Shroud of Turin exhibition will be on display at SS Peter & Paul Catholic Church, in North Street, from Tuesday to July 2.

The exhibition features a full-sized replica of the Shroud of Turin – the actual Shroud is housed in the cathedral of the Italian city of Turin – and includes detailed information boards.

The Shroud of Turin is a length of linen cloth that bears a faint image of the front and back of a man.

It has been venerated for centuries, especially by members of the catholic church, as the actual burial shroud used to wrap the body of Jesus of Nazareth after his crucifixion, and upon which Jesus’s bodily image is miraculously imprinted.

Parish priest Monsignor Mark Crisp said: “The Shroud of Turin exhibition includes a beautiful 15 foot replica image which is a photograph printed onto cotton by an American photographer, Barrie Schwortz, who was the official photographer at the STuRP (Shroud of Turin Research Project) examination of the Shroud in 1978.

“The genuine Shroud of Turin which shows the image of a man who has been crucified is preserved with great reverence in the Cathedral of Turin and the full-length replica is very rare.

“The exhibition has travelled widely and has been on display at Westminster Cathedral, Dublin Pro-Cathedral and Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.”

He added: “One of the purposes of the exhibition is to show how brutal crucifixion really was and to tell the story of the crucifixion of Jesus.”

The exhibition includes original Roman nails, a replica whip and a spear.

And there are information boards about art, history and the latest research on the Shroud.

Monsignor Crisp added: “No-one understands how the image appears on the Shroud.

“The STuRP team discovered it is not a painting, not a photograph and not a scorch but they could not determine the cause of the image.

“In December 2011 Italian scientists attempted to ‘identify the physical and chemical processes capable of generating a colour similar to that of the image on the Shroud’ by using short bursts of ultra violet light, using lasers.

“They managed to recreate a small section of cloth with some of the properties of the Shroud by this method.

“They concluded that ‘some form of electromagnetic energy (such as a flash of light at short wavelength)’ created the image on the Shroud of Turin.

“As ultra violet lasers were not available to medieval forgers it opens the possibility that the Shroud is actually Jesus’ burial cloth, the image being created at the point of resurrection.

“We welcome visitors to see the exhibition and make up their own minds about the Shroud of Turin.”